Rebel Wars - 2018 Awards [CLOSED]

POETRY WINNER || Melted Candle Review

Melted Candle

By Chl0eandrisk

Review by Thatonegirlfromoz 

Overview:

Melted Candle was a collection of poems ranging from multiple topics like depression, love, life, and many others. The style of writing was eloquent and well organized making it easy to read and enjoyable.

Cover/Title: 9/10

The cover is simple but eye-catching. The image of the girl is pretty, and the colors are calming, so for a poetry book it works well. The tags on the left-hand side are sized appropriately and do not distract from the cover. The title is excellent, and considering that I felt that your 'Melting Candle' was one of your strongest, it does well to be the focal point and be your title poem. The blurb was straight to the point and offered a good snippet of what could be found inside. Your choice to showcase 'Teary Flowers' was well thought out and helped catch my attention and entice me to read inside. My only call out being on the bottom where you mentioned being third place in the neon awards. You said 'on' where the correct term should have been 'in'. You are IN a contest. Not ON a contest. Other than that, the blurb and title work great.

Grammar/Word Choice: 8/10

Pros: 

Grammatically the work was organized in a way that was pleasant, but also easy to follow. Two poems in particular that stood out for me because of the structure were 'Structured Memories' and "Feverishly dead.' The simple yet impressing use of the bolded terms, followed by the poetic explanation of the term worked as a strong focal point. The meaning and strength of the poem residing in these words and serving to help tie together the emotions written before them. Word choice was also impactful. Your use of complex terms added an extra bit of attitude and emotion to your words. Now, using complicated words like "doleful, abyssopelagic, tessellating, caliginous" Can be a double-edged sword if misused it can lessen the meaning of the words and the poem as a whole, but in your case, they heightened them. You wrote in a way that not only explained the term but also built in a way that emphasized the raw emotion behind the word. As a reader, your choices in writing elevate your poems to a level expected from professionals.

Cons:

That being said, as mentioned before complex words can be a double-edged sword. You tend to use the same words in other poems, Abyssopelagic to be exact, in multiple poems. So when it came to reading various poems and finding the same words seemed to diminish it's strength and made it almost redundant. Making an otherwise excellent poem, something that felt overused. Sometimes less is more, especially when it comes to poetry. A reader seeks poetry for something to relate to, to create an image and connection with short bursts of stories on a page, but due to some of your poems being overly complicated the meaning is a bit lost.

Structure/Pacing: 10/10

The overall structure was simple to read and followed the main patterns used by most poets. Since it is poetry, it is incredibly difficult to have an incorrect structure. Your biggest call out in this was I was thrilled to see your method of bolding specific words to highlight a section.

Reading pace was comfortable, and each stanza was kept tidy and short. Poetry length was short in the majority of your writings, which for poetry often times is more successful.

Emotional pull: 10/10

Pros:

The biggest stand out for me from your book was 'Melted Candle.' The concept that you described by his 'drained soul' would typically make her seem like the bad guy, but considering the ending of her being alone with nothing but 'darkness' turned my initial concepts of blame to making me feel for her as the victim even though she destroyed the boy. Emotionally, your work is astounding. The image and description in many of your poems kept me wanting to read on to see what other dazzling scenes you could create. Perhaps my biggest praise going to your poems 'Teary Flowers.' 'The Stars Within You' and 'Lethe' which for me felt relatable and were impactful enough to make me want to re-read them multiple times to fully capture the message.

Cons:

I found no real issues with your emotional pull. You wrote in a way that each verse in each poem carried with it a piece of emotion. So, excellent job in this category!

Relatability: 8/10

Now as a reader who seeks poetry to be relatable, your work did well, but could perhaps be improved upon. Your more mundane poems that dealt with depression or other unfortunately common emotions were easier to relate to making me draw a stronger connection to them. Meanwhile poems like 'Labyrinth of thoughts' although descriptively impressive, were almost forgettable as they did not connect we me as a reader. Now, this is just a personal opinion, and I'm sure there are plenty of readers who like a more indirect method of poetry.

A major one that I wanted to point out was 'Brumous' where the concept of cutting ties with reality is something many of us want in our lives. For me personally, this was a hit and a miss, some of your poems for me struck close to home and gave me a feeling of understanding. Meanwhile, others when mixed in with complex terms, felt a bit odd and hard to connect to.

Overall/Final Comments: 8/10

Would I recommend this book to others: Absolutely!

Would I add to library and read the entire book: Yes.

Would I download this book outside of wattpad to keep: Yes

Would I PURCHASE this book if I found it at a bookstore: Maybe.

Final Comments:

It is entirely unsurprising that you won. Your talent for creating art through your words is astonishing and was structured in a way that made reading enjoyable. I found myself reading your book and flipping to the next one unwilling to put it down until I came across the next poem. Emotionally, you captured several raw emotions well. My only major suggestion, be mindful of your overall word choice while using complex terms is a commendable accomplishment it can also hinder you. Unfortunately, you do stand to isolate readers who may not read English at a level to understand these words, or simply are reading without being able to capture the literary hints needed to define a verse. If any of these cases are to arise, you could be costing your self-potential readers. Fantastic job, and I look forward to reading great things from you in the future!